Traveling the Camino
I am off to Spain tomorrow. I will spend 4 days in Madrid and then 8 days on the Camino De Santiago. I will post here all my thoughts, feelings, friendships and pictures.
We call ourselves the train orphans!
7/4/22
From the beginning of the journey it has been eventful. My train to San Francisco was to leave from Paso Robles at 4:30. However right at 4:30 a fire broke out and we had to wait for the fire to be put out. Fortunately the train stop had a winery. Many of us in the business car went to the winery and had a glass of wine. I met Sergio who is a wine merchant on his way home from a wine trip and Hunter who was on a 22-day train journey with a train pass all around the United States. Sergio gave me some restaurant ideas for Madrid as he has traveled there many times. Hunter and I talked about our similar professions. Hunter just graduated with a teaching certificate for ELA. This was his summer trip before he starts his first job. I have already started connecting with people before the journey even begins. I am so looking forward to this time.
update: I got to Amsterdam and KLM gave me a 12 Euros voucher because I had to change to a later flight… let's see if I can find some fine Gouda cheese.
July 5
Finally arrived in Madrid. Traveling around Europe is like traveling through the states. No more customs I love it. It's very hot here. 98.6 F(37 C) at 830pm. No air conditioning in my air bnb and fan is broken. This is actually a blessing in disguise. I will be hiking and similar weather 8 hours a day. My body will now be used to the heat. There's a silver lining everywhere.
July 6
Today I walked 13 miles on myself guided tour of Madrid.
The day started off at 7:00 a.m. (jet lag had me up at 4:30) I started my day with a tortilla de espana from Casa de Dani.
Next I had to buy a new suitcase. The zipper broke on my suitcase and there is no time to get it fixed. I will donate it to the cleaning woman of the apartment where I'm staying. I went to Casa de Maletas which had affordable suitcases. The one I bought was called pistachio green. It looks neon yellow to me.
I took a nap after that and woke up to a thunder and lightning storm. Once the storm was over at a bout 6 pm, I started my trek to dinner.I saw so many interesting things on the way to dinner. I visited the Palace of Velasquez.
Locatedin El Retiro Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Velázquez Palace was erected between 1881 and 1883.
Madrid is home to some wonderful examples of cast-iron architecture. One of the most striking is the Glass Palace which is located in El Retiro Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was originally built in 1887 as a greenhouse to showcase flora and fauna as part of an exhibition on the Philippines, then a Spanish colony. Today it is owned by the Reina Sofía Museum which uses it all year round as a venue for hosting temporary exhibitions. Here is a photo I took today inside the palace.
After the glass palace, I ran into a Day of the Dead exhibit right in the park. Although I couldn't take too many photos of all the deadheads, there was one that caught my attention.This one was by Monica Alexander for all the indigenous women in Mexico. You can hear her describe her head here
Dinner was supposed to be at Moratin 2 star Michelin restaurant, but he was full. The owner directed me to La Malotina. This restaurant only had 7 tables and could seat only 14 people at a time. I got the Octopus and Scallops with a glass of Albarino wine.
I finished the night off with a glass of 2015 Reserve Tempranilla. The whole bottle was 4 E.
Photo of breakfast this morning.
July 7-After the rains yesterday, I decided I should get a poncho for my Camino. I visited the sports store and got one for 5E. Pretty good deal. I went to the Prada Museum in the afternoon. I saw a version of the Mona Lisa that is perhaps the last version before the one at the Lourvre? They are not sure. I saw lots of great paintings. Intriguing to me were the sketches that the all the artists did before the final masterpiece. They were quite intricate. The painting that stood out most to me was El Cardenas by Rafael. It was a mesmerizing painting that appeared to be 3D. No photo on the Internet can visualize what I saw. In addition, there were lots of texture and movement in many of the paintings I saw. Sorry there are no photos. The Prada is a museum that must be experienced. Tonight I am taking a TAPAS cooking class.
As I have been walking most of my time in Madrid, I marvel at the sounds of the city. Everyday to get from some place or another, I walk through Retiro Park. Some days you hear guitar, tuba, cello, bagpipes or even piano. You never know what sounds you will hear. The park is incredibly shady and allows you to break from the very hot sun. It is a fantastic feeling to be in the park.
The Botanical Gardens in Retiro Park.
This photo was taken using a selfie mirror that was located on a building in front of me. I did it reverse so you would not see the camera in the image. Pretty cool.
Cooking class: we learned how to make a Russian salad croquettes and black rice paella with a cod dish in pimento sauce. We met Devon and Lizzie from California in Spain to attend a wedding. We met Jack, Aaron, Margaret and Sonia a family from Atlanta, Georgia traveling in Spain. And of course, we had our teacher Lola!
Here is what we cooked: Russian Salad, croquettes, paella with squid ink and cod in pimento sauce.
July 8: Today I went to the Reina Sofia Museum to see Picaso's Guernica. Besides Guernica, there were many of his other works displayed there as well. To my surprise, there were also works by Salvador Dali. It was an immersive multimedia experience with artifacts, film and audio. I higy recommend a visit there.
On the top there was a statue of a cow pig and lamb with the type of meat and percentage.This work is by MiraldaTerrassa, Barcelona, Spain, 1942
1981M
Material:
Fiberglass, polyester, wood, corn and paint
July 11;Today was a very hot day. It was more than 90°. We left Sarria before 7:00 a.m. The beginning was great until the heat came. Then it was very difficult. We had four interventions. The first one was a member not of our group who had hurt herself. We got her a taxi. The second one was one of our members who fell and got a very bad scrape on her knee. Between us we had enough first aid to help her clean the wound. Our guide use duct tape to secure the bandage. We are not sure it was the best action, but it worked to get her through the first day of the Camino. The third was also one of our group who had a very difficult time. Our guide went slowly with her. She made it. Not sure about tomorrow? The last intervention was a woman who fainted from heat exhaustion. We used cold packs to cool her down and send her in a taxi. I have pictures to share along with a video, but the Wi-Fi here is not good enough. I'll come back to that later. Tomorrow is another day with record heat and an extra 5 km of distance. Wish me well.
July 12: Today was a very difficult day. With more than 27 km to travel in 100° heat is not easy. We walked 8 km to get breakfast. However, we were too late to get anything warm. I got a sandwich that was not very good. It took me more than 7 hours to go to those kilometers because I had to rest often. I completed, but it was not fun.
July13: so after July 12th and the grueling 27 km hike in 100° weather, I decided to leave 2 hours before the rest of the group. Four of us decided to do this together and we had a great time. Today's hike was only 17 km. We really got to see the Camino this way. Churches were open, people were talking, we saw some beautiful sights, and we met Kelly. She is from Seattle. Had an amazing Camino story. She became dehydrated when she was doing her Camino and almost died. Some pilgrims came along and gave her hydration and electrolytes. That experience made her and her husband decide to move to Spain. They sold all their belongings in Seattle and moved to Valencia. During the pandemic they couldn't stand being in a small apartment. So they took another Camino and they saw this property for sale. It was meant to be for them and they bought it. They open the happiness Cafe on July 1st. It's kind of a food truck. I knew about this truck and had been looking for it because they had cold lattes.Today while we were traveling the Camino we saw this woman on the street asking pilgrims to drink water for free. We went there and I saw her truck. I asked her if I could get an ice cold latte and she said it was too hot for her to sell anything from the truck. But she could give us some. She gave me a beautiful ice cold latte and my friends a banana smoothie. She would not take any money. This was an amazing experience for me. So we ended up paying it forward today. Kelly paid us forward and we paid it forward to another family. There were these three bicyclists, two older people and one very small boy. They were lost. We asked them where they were looking to go, and miracles of miracles, they were staying at the same hotel as we were. We were going to lunch, but we just had to help them. It was a grandmother and grandfather from Dallas Texas along with their 6-year-old grandson. They were bicycling the Camino. The six-year-old was a Dynamo. The grandparents felt like they were in over their head. We walked them to the hotel and took this picture. Later on when we were checking in they were there. They introduced us to their whole family and said how happy they were that we helped them. Today was a great day!
July 14: today was a short 18.12 k or 11.2mile hike. We left at 7:00 and arrived around noon. We walk through picturesque villages and rolling hills. When we arrived in Arzua, we had a delious paella lunch. The weather is still very hot. We are hoping for a cooldown tomorrow.
In Arzua we went out for pizza and our waitress was Ciaria from Dublin. She did the Camino in 2015. She never left Spain again except to pack her things in Dublin. In 2019 she moved to Arzua.
July 15: We walked to Amenal. This was to be a 23 km hike. We thought because we had already had 27 km, 23 should be a piece of cake, but it wasn't. There weren't many cafes on this route so we couldn't stop as often as we liked. However there were lots of forests and shaded spots to walk through. We started before the sunrise. It was to be another very hot day.
There were a lot of hills.
We did manage to find a few cafes to rest our weary feet. But on the whole this section of the hike had the fewest cafes. Cafes are extremely important on this trek. They give you a place to rest, rehydrate and connect with people.
For some reason, this is where I started to see messages and memorials. Messages were from people urging us to keep going on. Memorials were about people who had died on the trail. In this section we found three memorials and many messages. I had been told by my colleagues that there were messages in previous segments. I must have missed them as I was trying to keep up with the group so much. It seems that you really need to focus outside yourself on this trek to see those messages. I was finally able to do that. You can see some of the messages and memorials below
Although our guy told us it was impossible to get lost, one member of our group did get lost for a little bit. Why is it so difficult to get lost? There are milestones all along the way telling you how far you have to go and which way to go. In addition, at some Churches, there are volunteers to stamp your passports
Sample Milestone marker.
The volunteer stamper.
We actually walked 24.8 k that day. It wasn't our longest day, but it felt like our hardest. Our feet were tired by this time. However looking forward we only have one more day left to go and that is the day we arrive in Santiago July 16th.
July 16th: this is our final day. The mile marker says we only have 17 km, but our guide assures us that it will be at least 20 km to get to our hotel. So we start off in the morning a bit later than usual.
There are a lot of cafes in this last section of the hike. We need to get as many stamps as possible to fill up our passports. So we stop at every Cafe. This is one of them.
As we walk into the city of Santiago, yet another memorial appears. This reminds us of the feat we've accomplished in more ways than one.
Having arrived finally was a great feeling. I was able to hook up with the biking family again. However, they were no longer biking. They had put their bikes aside and continued on foot halfway through the trip. It was wonderful to see this family take this trip. They were three generations together. Beautiful to see
In the slideshow below, you can see some of the images that I saw. As I reflect on my experience, I learned to stop,look, listen, and hear better. I learned that a lot of your feelings are dictated by your mind. Mindset is incredibly important. Many times when I felt like I could no longer make it, it was because my mind was overriding me. Once I focused on making it and took it out of my mind I was able to do it. For our group, the last little bit was always so difficult. We decided it was our mind making it difficult. I don't think I realized how influential your mind is over your body. I intend to focus on changing my mindset to be a better person. I hope you have enjoyed my journey as much as I did. Thank you for reading
We arrived to the outskirts of town.
The picture above is of the cathedral in Santiago.
Festivities in the plaza square.
